Emile Bernard

La Chanteuse du Café-Concert (The Songstress in the Cabaret) Morane 5 zincograph, 1888, a splendid working proof of the rare first state (of two), printed in black on medium-fine tan wove paper, extensive heightened with watercolor wash, signed in brown crayon lower right,, with small though uneven margins, some slight overall soiling, a well-repaired horizontal tear from the center right into the image, another short tear on the lower left edge, small paper losses along the margins, several pinholes, foxing on the verso, mounted in stiff matting board with transparent corners, otherwise in relatively good condition Provenance: Swann Auction Galleries, New York City, 18 September 2008, lot 13; and Sotheby's, New York City, 30 April 2009, lot 23 P. 298 x 232 mm. S. 326 x 250 mm.

The year of 1888 was crucial in the development of these new art forms in France* and Emile Bernard was drawn to printmaking at the same time.  Recourse to zinc plates as a remplacement for lithographic printing was in practice since the 1820's, and Pissarro was notably an exponent, but the synthetist movement gave it renewed vigor.  (Incidentally, according to Marcel Guérin**,  it was Bernard's idea "to obtain these grained washes that may be seen both on his plates and Gauguin's, by taking a brush and diluting the ink with water on the zinc plate."

La Chanteuse du Café-Concert is the second of Bernard's zincographs, and the present impression is clearly a working proof of the utmost rarity... we have only seen one other first-state impression in black on auction in recent years (the Jeffry Kaplow Collection, Drouot, 4 November 2020), and an equivalent impression may be seen in the INHA, Doucet Collection in Paris (see‌ http://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/idurl/1/15851‌), which has been trimmed down close to the borderline.  We know of only one other first-state impression that has been heightened with watercolor: see the Tajan sale, 4 December 2006, of similar dimensions. 

Emile Bernard's intention to produce a colored version is also witnessed by a curious impression in the INHA, Doucet collection, which both the INHA and Caroline Boyle-Turner qualify as a "second state", with fine pastel heightening, filling a diffuse background of ochre-yellow and purplish-violet across the songstress's bodice.***

The colored version was never taken to completion, and never realised as an edition... we only know of  several later impressions that he produced during his stay in Egypt , several years later.

In any case, the present impression is of the utmost rarity, and is of significant art historical interest.